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Bolster   /bˈoʊlstər/   Listen
Bolster

noun
1.
A pillow that is often put across a bed underneath the regular pillows.  Synonym: long pillow.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bolster" Quotes from Famous Books



... it carefully out, and had been actually on the point of deciding when the old physician appeared. Then Doctor Purdy, reading in his eyes the very image of despair, left good suggestions as the best medicine he then knew to bolster him up. The consequence was that Jeb, instead of resorting to wounds, settled on a better plan: he would become more ill, grow worse and worse, so that by Tuesday the doctor might carry a certificate to ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris

... many years ago, when Samuel Darby, though somewhat Abe's junior, was keeper of the Life-saving Station, and Abe was to be gone for a whole season's duty. Then all of his possessions had been stowed in a long, bolster-like canvas ...
— Old Lady Number 31 • Louise Forsslund

... rapid thumps upon the bare ground, led the three big brothers in that direction one May morning, and, on turning the corner, they found the little girl leaning convulsively against the old straw stack for support, while in front of her, blinded by a big, red handkerchief, and with a long bolster full of hay across her dappled withers, was the blue mare, making stiff, wild plunges into the air, with arched back and head held low. For the little girl was breaking her ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates

... this in Pope. Had he been a really great poet of the old Homer or Dante breed, he would have outshot his age, till he "dwindled in the distance;" but in lieu of immediate fame, and of elaborate lectures in the next century, to bolster it unduly up, all generations would have "risen and called ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... just like you. And we should all be just alike in order to assure one another that we're all just right. But since you and Harry and Elizabeth and ten million other people bolster each other up, why ...
— Plays • Susan Glaspell

... very wide windows, and three windows were filled with galleons of cloud—fat, bolster, swelling vessels, white, save where, in their curving sails, they had caught a faint radiance from the hidden sun. In fine procession, against the blue, they passed along. Very faint and muffled there came up from the Square the lingering ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... Little, Small, Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was the bolster in its place, and upon the pillow was the little old woman's ugly, dirty head-which was not in its place, for she ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten

... door, and saw a bare feather-bed and bolster, the usual materiel in an unoccupied college chamber. "Seeing's believing," said ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various

... intense eagerness. Each realized that a fortune lay on the table; knew that the old Judge had madly staked his all on the value of those five unseen cards gripped in his fingers. Again, as though to bolster up his shaken courage, he stared at the face of each, then lifted his blood-shot eyes ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... to my knowledge, that's taken up by three lodgers already. (After a pause, in which the rest seem disconcerted.) I have hit it. Don't you think, Stingo, our landlady could accommodate the gentlemen by the fire-side, with——three chairs and a bolster? ...
— She Stoops to Conquer - or, The Mistakes of a Night. A Comedy. • Oliver Goldsmith

... of a week. She was the only really innocent, unspoiled, unselfconscious girl he had ever met, almost as old-fashioned as his great grandmother must have been. Not that he set forth her virtues to bolster his determination to marry a girl of no family even in her own country; he was madly in love, and life without her was unthinkable; but he tabulated the thousand points to her credit for the ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... years and who is now deceased is anxious to meet a similar one." "TO PIANO-FORTE MAKERS.—A lady keeping a first-class school requiring a good piano, is desirous of receiving a daughter of the above in exchange for the same." "The Moor, seizing a bolster boiling over with rage and jealousy, smothers her." "The Dying Zouave the most wonderful mechanical representation ever seen of the last breath of life being shot in the breast and life's blood leaving ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... reestablishment of the imperial regimen, as they pinned their fate to this last desperate conflict. Among these, none had been prouder, none more loyal to the Spanish Sovereign, and none more liberal in dispensing its great wealth to bolster up a hopeless cause than the ancient and aristocratic family at whose head stood Don Ignacio Jose Marquez de Rincon, distinguished member of the Cabildo, and most loyal subject of his imperial majesty, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... servant will put back through the seam of the tick; she will also be careful to sew up any stitch that gives way the moment it is discovered. The bedclothes are laid on, beginning with an under blanket and sheet, which are tucked under the mattress at the bottom. The bolster is then beaten and shaken, and put on, the top of the sheet rolled round it, and the sheet tucked in all round. The pillows and other bedclothes follow, and the counterpane over all, which should fall in graceful ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... uttering a peculiar growling sound, and, to the astonishment of mother and son, he caught up the pillow and gave Vince a bang with it which knocked him back on the bolster. "Cold pudding!" he cried. "Here! try a shoe-sole to-morrow night, and see if you can digest that. Come to bed, my dear. Look here, Vince: tell Mr Deane to give you some lessons in natural history, and then you'll learn that you are not an ostrich, ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn

... and I'm going to do the talking for them. Sarah, sensibly enough, wants to get it over before dinner, so I've promised to come over right after lunch and sit on your porch so I'll be here no matter how early Hugh gets home. You and I have to bolster up the ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence

... very bad after all. But let's suppose it is; suppose he has slid back into the worst of his old ways, is it going to pay to go on and break things all up for yourself, for the purpose of trying to bolster him up? It seems to me you would let your enthusiasm get away with your common sense. But it's your business, Jimmie. Only the thing that gets me is the blooming uselessness of it ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field

... bears his name. It mattered not that Bertillon had never appeared in a handwriting case before, or that his skill in this line was unknown. He was a man of science, of great renown in other lines, and the government relied on these facts to bolster up its claim that Dreyfus wrote the incriminating papers Bertillon reported in favor of the government's contention, and it was an easy matter to get some alleged experts—weak as to will and ability—and one or two honest but misguided men to agree with him. Some of these afterward changed their ...
— Disputed Handwriting • Jerome B. Lavay

... They were talking loudly and gesticulating, and after a moment one of them leaped into the air, brandishing his spear and uttering savage war cries, which soon had their effect upon his fellows so that it was not long ere all of them were taking part in the wild show of savagery, which would bolster their waning courage and presently spur them on to ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... in a grip that hurt. "I know, boy. And one day in the glad future I shall call upon you—who knows?—to attend a similar ceremony on my behalf, and in which Mr. Narkom here has promised to act as best man—with Dollops to bolster him up if he should be attacked with nerves. Now be off with you and—be happy. We'll see you later at the Towers, Merriton. Good-bye ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew

... I was thinking," said Mr. Newman. "Perhaps I wasn't thinking. I saw a signpost farther along the road with something like a long bundle—it was rather like a limp bolster, I fancy—hanging from it. I was staring toward it, when there came a noise behind me, like a trumpet being blown, and I turned to see a coach with four horses come tearing along toward me, with a red- coated man at the back, ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon

... natives do not use tables and chairs in their houses. Neither do they, as a general thing, use bedsteads. They have no beds. They sleep on mats, which are spread down on the floor. Sometimes they use a cotton bolster for their heads. More generally their pillows are hard boards, which they put under the mat. In addition to cooking, the females have to prepare the rice for this purpose, by taking it out of the husk. This they do by beating it in a mortar ...
— Dr. Scudder's Tales for Little Readers, About the Heathen. • Dr. John Scudder

... it. We hear Romeo wish to be "a glove upon that hand that he might touch that cheek:" three minutes afterwards he beholds Romeo refresh himself with a pot of porter. We see the Moor, who "loved not wisely, but too well," smother Desdemona with the nuptial bolster: he sees them sit down to a hot supper. We always think of the actor as on the stage: he always thinks of us as in the boxes. In justice to the poets of the present day, it may be noticed that they have improved on their brethren in Johnson's time, who were, according to Lord Macaulay, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... invented to prove a theory—much like the stuff they put between the covers of school history books—so Ali Baba's lecture, although gorgeous fiction in its way, hardly enriched knowledge. Not that he was free from the latterday craving for accuracy whenever it might serve to bolster up the ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy

... relief were sympathy for Mike, gratitude to him for having given himself up so promptly, and a curiously dazed sensation, as if somebody had been hitting him on the head with a bolster. ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... man had come in. Then she drew a sword and thrust it at Thord and gave him great wounds, the sword striking his right arm and wounding him on both nipples. So hard did she follow up the stroke that the sword stuck in the bolster. Then Aud went away and to her horse and leapt on to its back, and thereupon rode home. Thord tried to spring up when he got the blow, but could not, because of his loss of blood. Then Osvif awoke and asked what had happened, and Thord told that he had been wounded somewhat. Osvif asked if ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... crossed the road and disappeared under the thick spruces and balsams; here and there, the sly, single track of the fox, or the deep hoof-mark of the deer, led off into unknown depths on either side. Hughie, sitting up on the bolster of the front bob beside Billy Jack, for even the big boys recognized his right, as Thomas' guest, to that coveted place, listened with eager face and wide-open eyes to Billy Jack's remarks upon the forest and ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor

... lady Feng, laughingly, "I know everything! You don't at all come to look me up on account of verses or paintings, but simply to take revenge on P'ing Erh's behalf! I never had any idea that P'ing Erh had such a backer as yourself to bolster her up! Had I known it, I wouldn't have ventured to strike her, even though a spirit had been tugging my arm! Miss P'ing come over and let me tender my apologies to you, in the presence of your senior lady and the young ladies. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... often used for chair legs was the X that shows Flemish influence. The lit-de-repos, or chaise-longue, was a seat about six feet long, sometimes with arms and sometimes not, and with a mattress and bolster. The beds were very elaborate and very important in the scheme of decoration, as the ladies of the time held receptions in their bedrooms and the king and nobles gave audiences to their subjects while in bed. These latter were therefore necessarily ...
— Furnishing the Home of Good Taste • Lucy Abbot Throop

... of tyranny. This law gave Douglass and the other abolitionists a new text. It was a set-back to their cause; but they were not entirely disheartened, for they saw in it the desperate expedients by which it was sought to bolster up an institution already doomed by the advancing tide ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... the hair-felt not only preserved their bodily heat from escaping, but it prevented the damp of the earth from ascending. This mattress was ten feet long, therefore it could be rolled up to form a bolster at one end; and, during a hot sun, it was intended for a cover to the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... of the eternal and never-changing Trinity". The Virginians, on the other hand, fell heir to the ignorance, and "fearful and superstitious instinct of nature" of Ham (p. 40). Ahone, therefore, is not invented by Strachey to bolster up a theory (held by Strachey), of an inherited revelation, or of a sensus numinis which could not go wrong. Unless a proof be given that Strachey had a theory, or any other purpose, to serve by inventing Ahone, I cannot at present come into the opinion that he gratuitously fabled, though ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... said David, absently. She went over to his bed and beat up the bolster and made everything ready ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... sat up on their bolster, and stared into the darkness. The room was full of water, and by a misty moonbeam, which found its way through a hole in the shutter, they could see, in the midst of it, an enormous foam globe, spinning ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... on the floor along the very low large window, with two rugs and cushions, and a holdall for a bolster, is as comfortable as any bed, and you don't miss sheets after a day or two. There is one bathroom for 120 or more people, but I get a cold bath every morning early. S—— gets our early morning tea, and M. sweeps our room, ...
— Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... "Oh! haven't I got a picture of you dancing. Wait 'til I show you!" And ably assisted by the bolster and the bedspread, she gave a masterly imitation of her stout stepmother that made the original limp with laughter. Then quite as suddenly, Nance collapsed into a ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... firm in the whirlwind of opinions, that she needed not to bolster it by bigotry. To the friends, who once murmured against her too great tolerance, she replied, "Of what use is it to live, if one is never to hear any thing but his own voice?" Her compassion and her patience were unconquerable. ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... time finding you . . ." he began, and suddenly broke off. Then, as if to bolster up his courage, he attempted to shove aside a chair that interfered with his actions but pushed it so hard ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... expended in caring for them. What a collection was in those old-time linen chests! Humphreys, in her Catherine Schuyler, copies the inventory of articles in one: "35 homespun Sheets, 9 Fine sheets, 12 Tow Sheets, 13 bolster-cases, 6 pillow-biers, 9 diaper brakefast cloathes, 17 Table cloathes, 12 damask Napkins, 27 homespun Napkins, 31 Pillow-cases, 11 dresser Cloathes and a damask Cupboard Cloate." And this too before the day of the washing-machine, the steam laundry, and the electric iron! The mere energy lost ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... himself the same authority which the false apostles attributed to the true apostles. Paul simply inverts their argument. "to bolster their evil cause," says he, "the false apostles quote the authority of the great apostles against me. I can quote the same authority against them, for the apostles are on my side. They gave me the right hand of fellowship. ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... let go of the ropes at the same time. Together they dropped down to the hay—and then something happened! The two older Bobbsey children jumped too near the edge of the mow, where the hay was piled in a big roll, like a great feather bed bolster, over the top rail. And Bert and Nan, in their drop, caused a big pile of hay—almost a wagonload—to slip from the mow and down to the barn floor. And directly ...
— Bobbsey Twins in Washington • Laura Lee Hope

... Damon. "So this is one of his tricks to bolster up his new bank! He hopes the people who withdraw their money from our bank will deposit with him. I see his game. He's a scoundrel, and if it's possible I'm going to sue him for damages after this ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout - or, The Speediest Car on the Road • Victor Appleton

... with her head buried in Aunt Cordelia's new bolster sham; for how could she confess to Hattie and to Rosalie that it was a parlour ...
— Emmy Lou - Her Book and Heart • George Madden Martin

... and sat by Halldis afterwards while the men talked and passed the mead about. She was pale and silent, but did not give way, nor leave them till her usual time. When she was in her bed she sobbed, and buried her hot face in the bolster; but even then she did not cry. She was always impatient of deeds which led nowhere—and crying is a ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett

... to any German who reads it as the statements made by Germans about England have often been to me. It is true, however, that tall people do find the old-fashioned German bedsteads short; and it is true that the big square downy pillows are supported by a wedge-shaped bolster called a Keilkissen. But the Plumeau is what the German loves, and the Briton hates above all things: the mountain of down or feathers that tumbles off on cold nights and stays on on hot ones. You hate it all the year round, because in winter it is too short and in summer it is ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... time, to bolster my flagging courage, I found myself thinking of all the ways it might have been worse. I had heard of a shegrin exposed to the bite of poisonous—not fatal, but painfully poisonous—insects, and to the worrying of the small gnawing rodents which can be trained to bite and ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... its place' is my own motto; the motto of my wife—'All over the place.' Her serpents have shortened my life, word of honour!— they wander where they will. I never lay my head beside those curl rags of hers without anticipating a cobra-decapello under the bolster. It is not everybody's money. Lucrece has no objection to them; well, it is very courageous—very fortunate, since snakes are her profession—but I, I was not brought up to snakes; I am not at my ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... be alarmed. I'm not going to bite a hole in the ship and scuttle her. Moreover, I am a very meek and lowly individual on board this ship. There's a lot of difference between being in supreme command with all kinds of authority to bolster you up and being a rat in a trap as I am now. Up in Copperhead Camp I was a nabob, here I'm a nobody. Up there I was the absolute boss of five or six hundred men,—I won't say I could boss the women,—and I made 'em all walk chalk without once losing step. There were murderers and ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon

... little less, now. No—-don't try it," as Dick started to bolster himself up. "You want that knee in shape at the earliest moment, ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... simple and easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself.—Mr. Bernard looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he said;—"not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered bureau. First he squeezed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... burbled downstairs, "a word from Mother Kohler herself, about the brand new special B-Complex Irradiated Bolster you can get at your ...
— Supermind • Gordon Randall Garrett

... morals. My poems were about the crystal snow, and the ocean blue, and sweet spring, and fleecy clouds; when I tried to drag in a moral it kicked so that the music of my lines went out in a groan. So I had a sweet revenge when Lizzie, one day, volunteered to bolster up the eloquence of Mr. Jones, the principal, who was lecturing the class for bad behavior, by comparing the bad boy in the schoolroom to the rotten apple that spoils the barrelful. The groans, coughs, a-hem's, feet shufflings, and paper pellets that filled the room as Saint ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... Young's "Travels in France." To discuss the question of Slavery without passion or even sentiment seemed an impossibility; yet Mr. Olmsted has shown that it can be done, and, having no theory to bolster, has contrived to tell us what he saw, and not what he went to see,—the rarest achievement among travellers. Without the charm of style, he has the truthfulness ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... possession; but a man should struggle for it no more than he would for beauty. Many, however, do struggle for it, and with such success that, though they do not achieve quite the real thing, still they get something on which they can bolster themselves up and ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... place and candy is a narrow foot-path that shows more mounting than anything, so much really that a calling meaning a bolster measured a whole thing with that. A virgin a whole virgin is judged made and so between curves and outlines and real seasons and more out glasses and a perfectly unprecedented arrangement between old ladies and mild colds there is no satin ...
— Tender Buttons - Objects—Food—Rooms • Gertrude Stein

... why every man will, at sacrifice of his comfort and his last five dollars, exercise his right to wear them whenever he can do so. But your idea of a beautiful costume, Mr. Grey, seems to be a blue, red, or yellow bag, or bolster-case, drawn over the head, mouth downwards, with a hole in the middle of the bottom for the neck and two at the corners for the arms, and bound about the waist with a cord; for I observe that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various

... having two enemies, was pulled down sprawling over a rushbottom chair, and then nearly kicked over the washstand, making such a clatter that the Squire knocked angrily at the wall; when off the noisy ones ran back into Fred's room, Harry this time being the pursuer, armed with his bolster, "Bang, crash—crash, bang—whiz—wuz—rush." Fred went backwards upon his bed, hors de combat, from a well-directed blow from Harry's bolster; and then at it went Harry and Phil—the latter being ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn

... recommending himself to the ladies than the improving his understanding, and filling his mind with good literature. He no sooner, therefore, heard the violent uproar in the next room, than he leapt from his bolster, and, taking his sword in one hand, and the candle which burnt by him in the other, he went directly ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding

... me to observe. When I say defend, draw up the hand smartly, and from the first guard. Be smart!—second guard! third guard! Remember, if you have a big, ugly fellow, with a sword sharp enough to divide a bolster, who happens to wish to cut your head off, he doesn't stop to consider which is the right guard to make, or thrust to deliver. He'd whip off your head before you had time to look round, and then what would you think of yourself, I should like ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston

... replied he, "and in defiance of your laughter, I lay behind her bolster, and supported her in my arms; and, upon my soul, I believe I felt more pain in my mind than she underwent in her body. And now answer me as honestly: Do you really think it a proper time of mirth, when the creature one ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding

... workshops, or refectories. The upper stories are used as immense sleeping apartments, ten or twelve feet in height, with shining floors; they are furnished with two rows of iron bedsteads, excellent beds, composed of a soft thick mattress, a bolster, sheets of white linen, and a ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... an image, and laid it in the bed, and put a pillow of goat's hair for his bolster, and covered ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... the Little, Small, Wee Bear came to look at his bed, there was the bolster in its place; and the pillow in its place upon the bolster; and upon the pillow was the little old Woman's ugly, dirty head,—which was not in its place, for ...
— The Apple Dumpling and Other Stories for Young Boys and Girls • Unknown

... in the distance. And Elisha, coming to the child's assistance, With the house on the wall that was built for the prophet, The chair, the bed and the bolster of it. The eyebrows all had a twirl reflective, Just like an eel: to spare invective There was plenty of color but no perspective. However, Clara cleaned it all, With a curious lamp, that hangs in the hall; She cleaned ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... by the noise, Stared round the room with dull, delirious sight, At this wild thing and that: for through his eyes The place took fearful shapes, and fever showed Strange crosswise lights about his pillow-head. He, catching there at some phantasmic help, Sat upright on the bolster with a cry Of "Where is Jesus? It is bitter cold!" And then, because the thunder-calls outside Were mixed for him with slanders of the past, He called his weeping wife by name, and said, "Come closer, darling! We shall speed away Across ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall

... have been proper for the learned counsel on the part of the plaintiff, if he thought the witnesses on the part of the respondent unworthy of belief, to have proved them so; but instead of that, he attempts to bolster up men, who, whether respectable or otherwise, from their inconsistency, involutions and tergiversations in regard to this case, produce no possible effect upon the judicial mind, but that which is unfavorable to themselves. Impartial men, are ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... had projected in Spain. It was disheartening to find his old publishers dubious about undertaking the republication, and for a time the work went hard. "I am growing a sad laggard in literature," he wrote to his nephew, "and need some one to bolster me up occasionally. I am too ready to do anything else rather than write." For more than a year his time was largely devoted to overseeing an enlargement of the cottage, and a renovation of the grounds, at Sunnyside. At last he got it all into satisfactory order. "My own place has ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... hotel, the Mansion House, where we were welcomed by the worthy host in person; although he had not bed-rooms for us that night, for we were three in company. We were, however, soon furnished with a most excellent supper; and after, two of us got, not "three chairs and a bolster," but a couple of camp bedsteads with good mattresses, and sheets white as snow. Our senior companion, Mr. P——, was provided with a bed-chamber; and what could the heart of weary ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... I've got a hunch that we will," chirped his cousin, with a sublime confidence that quite won Andy's heart; if he could not see any good reason for hope himself, the fact that his chum pinned his faith on it was enough to bolster ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy

... Admiral Calvin Bolster, chief of aeronautics research experimental craft, was an Annapolis classmate of mine. So was Captain Delmer S. Fahrney, head of the Navy guided-missile program. Fahrney was at Point Mugu, missile-testing base in California, and I wasn't able to see him. But I knew him as a careful, conscientious ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe

... some reminiscences from Mr. Robinson Cook, of Bolster's Mills, in Maine, who had also known Hawthorne as a boy; some poetry on the Tarbox tragedy was also found, and printed, which afterward proved to have been written by another person; and one or two other letters were published, not especially relevant to ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... the answer. Frances went in, and closed the door. Nola was lying face downward on her pillow, like a child, and Frances found on putting out her comforting hand that the fickle little lady's bolster was wet with tears. She sat on the bedside and tried gently to turn Nola's face toward her. That brought on a storm of tears and moanings, and agonized burrowing of her face into ...
— The Rustler of Wind River • G. W. Ogden

... slightly less important but socially ambitious to protect them from the friendly, rather puzzled high-school element. From the moment he realized this Amory resented social barriers as artificial distinctions made by the strong to bolster up their weak retainers and ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... a weapon to bolster up the rich and keep down the poor," he flung back with an acid smile. "But there's law and law. Even in our class we have our standards, such as ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine

... retired to bed, where he spent, indeed, the greater part of every day, as they had taken his books away. La Ramee carried off all his clothes, in order to be certain that the duke would not stir. However, the duke contrived to hide the ball under his bolster and as soon as the door was closed he tore off the cover of the ball with his teeth and ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... surprise I have discovered that I have suddenly become a moral coward, and am obliged to descend to subterfuges in order to bolster up my courage. This isn't a usual thing with me, I think, but neither is the occasion. I've been wanting and planning to tell you something, face to face, for a long time; but at the crucial moment my courage has failed each time. I could not nerve myself to bear the ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson

... to his wife's panegyrics on striking and her heartfelt tribute to the end of a perfect day. Even when standing on the cold floor while she remade the bed he maintained an attitude of unbending dignity, only relaxing when she smote him light-heartedly with the bolster. In a few ill-chosen words he expressed his opinion of her mother and her deplorable methods of bringing up ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... for congratulation. He called upon the rich landowner, the Marquis de Chavanes, on purpose to deliver himself with joyful unction of solemn platitudes about the inscrutable ways of Providence. In the vast dimness of the curtained drawing-room, the little man, resembling a black bolster, leaned towards a couch, his hat on his knees, and gesticulated with a fat hand at the elongated, gracefully-flowing lines of the clear Parisian toilette from which the half-amused, half-bored marquise listened with gracious languor. ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... forgot Britain." Her readiness to pardon Iachimo's false imputations and his designs against herself, is a good lesson to prudes; and may shew that where there is a real attachment to virtue, it has no need to bolster itself up with an outrageous or affected antipathy to vice. The scene in which Pisanio gives Imogen his master's letter, accusing-her of incontinency on the treacherous suggestions of Iachimo, is as touching as it is possible for anything ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... he was in was almost bare of furniture. Even part of the carpet had been taken up. The windows were wide open; a stale odour of drugs pervaded the air, while upon the bed nothing remained but the mattress and bolster. For a moment Bennett looked about him bewildered, then he started sharply. This was—had been—the sick-room. Here, upon that bed, Ferriss had died; here had been enacted one scene in the terrible drama wherein he, Bennett, had ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... slipped? She perches on the shoulders of the sentry in the sentry-box: she whispers the porter sleeping in his arm-chair: she glides up the staircase, and lies down between the king and queen in their bed-royal: this very night I dare say she will perch upon poor old Goody Twoshoes's meagre bolster, and whisper, "Will the gentleman and those ladies ask me again? No, no; they will forget poor old Twoshoes." Goody! For shame of yourself! Do not be cynical. Do not mistrust your fellow-creatures. What? Has the Christmas morning dawned upon thee ninety ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... the likelihood of your being believed if you do. Just when you have concocted an absurdly implausible tale about a man outside, the door opens, and a tall, severe-looking woman enters, carrying what at first sight appears to be a particularly skinny bolster, with the feathers all at one end. Instinct, however, tells you that this is the baby, and you rise with a miserable attempt at appearing eager. When the first gush of feminine enthusiasm with which the object in question is received has died out, and the number of ladies talking at once ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... I suppose you'll enlighten me as to what 'it' means?" hinted Jack, trying hard to bolster up a courage that, none the less, would ooze ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... 1873, noted that the Irish University Bill was "going badly in the country, and the Noncons. and Leaguers in the House ought to have the game in their hands." He wished "they would have the pluck to tell Mr. Gladstone that they will do nothing to bolster up a Ministry which will not give satisfactory assurances upon English education;" and he wanted Mr. George Dixon to go on with his resolution in favour of universal free schools and carry ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... Fortunately she was light. Still, it was no easy matter to get her limp form into his arms. With a desperate effort he got her on his knee; with an inelegant hitch he sent her across his shoulder, where she hung like a limp bolster, as he made for the fence. May and Tottie stood there rooted to the earth in horror. To walk on uneven ground with such a burden was bad enough, but Phil had to run. How he did it he never could tell, but he reached the fence at last, and shot Miss Lillycrop over into the arms of her ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne

... of the masters she remembered and tried to find words. What was it? Had her masters been more—respectful than these Germans were? She felt they had. But it was not only that. She recalled the men she remembered teaching week by week through all the years she had known them... the little bolster-like literature master, an albino, a friend of Browning, reading, reading to them as if it were worth while, as if they were equals... interested friends—that had never struck her at the time.... But it was true—she could not remember ever having felt a schoolgirl... ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... not to make a noise, and saying, "Well,—well,—well,—so you shall,—hold your tongue (to the girl), he won't hurt you,—look his cock is not big." She pulled the girl on to the edge of the bed again, and brought her cunt up to the proper level with the bolster and pillows. Then said the woman, "Let me hold your cock, you must not put it far in, she is so young." I promised I would only sheath the tip; but she declared I should not unless she held it. "Wrap your ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... ... Royalist, and went to her mother near Oxford: he sent for her after some time, and I think his servant was evilly entreated,"—such are Aubrey's brief notes of the facts; after which come his own reflections on the rupture: "Two opinions do not well on the same bolster;" and "What man, especially contemplative, would like to have a young wife environed and stormed by the sons of Mars, and those of the enemy party?" Finally Wood, in his Fasti, does little more ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... he was taking fright again, and he began to bolster up his courage with bluster and ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... removed sooner than anyone had anticipated. The next trip that the captain made was for his hammock (he always slept in one), which was a long unwieldy bundle, like a gigantic bolster. He carried it into the parlour on his shoulder, and ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne

... 'Twould be some solace yet, some little cheering, In this close dungeon of innumerous boughs. But, Oh, that hapless virgin, our lost sister! 350 Where may she wander now, whither betake her From the chill dew, amongst rude burs and thistles? Perhaps some cold bank is her bolster now, Or 'gainst the rugged bark of some broad elm Leans her unpillowed head, fraught with sad fears. What if in wild amazement and affright, Or, while we speak, within the direful grasp Of savage hunger, or ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton

... There my bed-fellows and companions were, My man, my horse, a bull, four cows, two steer: But yet for all this most confused rout, We had no bed-staves, yet we fell not out. Thus nature, like an ancient free upholster, Did furnish us with bedstead, bed, and bolster; And the kind skies, (for which high heaven be thanked,) Allowed us a large covering and a blanket; Auroras face 'gan light our lodging dark, We arose and mounted, with the mounting lark, Through plashes, puddles, thick, thin, wet and dry, I ...
— The Pennyles Pilgrimage - Or The Money-lesse Perambulation of John Taylor • John Taylor

... daughter, and this is my sister." There was another girl beside her, whom I had not seen, as her head was under the bolster. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... possibilities, and it's just our part to draw them out. It's the divine foolishness of women's love that serves their need, that makes them feel after better things. No woman ever won a man by despising him. He may be inferior—he is—but he wants real love to bolster him up. I guess the dear Lord thought of that when He ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell

... Bissell's invention prompted others to perfect safety trucks for locomotives. Alba F. Smith came forward in 1862 with the simple substitution of swing links (fig. 4) for the incline planes.[11] A swing-bolster truck had been developed 20 years earlier for use on railroad cars,[12] and while Smith recognized this in his patent, he based his claim on the specific application of the idea to locomotive trucks. That the swing links succeeded the incline planes as a centering device was mainly ...
— Introduction of the Locomotive Safety Truck - Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology: Paper 24 • John H. White

... sound asleep, and required some shaking before they could be convinced that it was time to get up. Then each boy put his bolster in his bed, rolled up his night shirt into a ball and laid it on the pillow, and then partly covered it up with the clothes. Then they slipped on their shirts, breeches, and stockings and, taking their jackets and shoes in their ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty

... which they now hold. Fifty years ago, when George IV. was king, they were not indeed treated as Lydia had been forced to treat them in the preceding reign, when, on the approach of elders, Peregrine Pickle was hidden beneath the bolster, and Lord Ainsworth put away under the sofa. But the families in which an unrestricted permission was given for the reading of novels were very few, and from many they were altogether banished. The high ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope

... If a great old family can only bolster up its greatness by alliances with the daughters of oil-strikers, then let the family perish ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... of distance or direction. As each new season's fashion is defined, all the sheep run and dress themselves each in a replica of the other, their own types and personalities have nothing to do with the case. Fashion says: "Wear bolster cases tied at the neck and ankle," or "A few wisps of gauze held in place with court plaster," and daughter, mother, grandmother, and all the neighbors wear the same. If emerald green is the fashionable color, all of the yellowest skins will be framed in it. When hobble skirts are the thing, ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... The chest of drawers was large enough to hold my small box beside the table. I got on the drawers by means of a chair, then by means of the box I got on the table, and so succeeded in getting down the sword. Having replaced the furniture, I laid the weapon under my bolster, and was soon fast asleep. The moment I woke I got up, and before the house was stirring had deposited the sword in an outbuilding whence I could easily get it off the premises. Of course my companions knew, and I told them all my design. Moberly hinted that ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... two or three of the cells deepened this impression. In each was a small wooden bedstead about a foot and a half high, with nothing upon it but a very thin paillasse, a black blanket (the colour of the wool), and a little bolster. Upon a nail hung a small cat-o'-nine-tails of ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... forecastle reigned similar confusion. But there was a snug little lair, cleared away in one corner, and furnished with a grass mat and bolster, like those used among the Islanders of these seas. This little lair looked to us as if some leopard had crouched there. And as it turned out, we were not far from right. Forming one side of this retreat, was ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... he gave her such a remembrance in the guts, that she began to roar loud enough to be heard all over the house. Adams then, seizing her by the hair (for her double-clout had fallen off in the scuffle), pinned her head down to the bolster, and then both called for lights together. The Lady Booby, who was as wakeful as any of her guests, had been alarmed from the beginning; and, being a woman of a bold spirit, she slipt on a nightgown, petticoat, and slippers, and taking a candle, which always burnt in ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding

... you will no doubt think it right, after you complete the series of your admirable and unanswerable letters, to expose the fallacy and falsehood with which Hon. R. B. Sullivan, as "Legion," endeavours to bolster up his arguments in reply to them, I think the enclosed precis of a conversation that took place between the leader of the French party in the late Council and myself, early in May last, will convince you that His Excellency did not write his despatch ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... purple rays, nothing but gloomy hours, a long day stretching out before her like a gray corridor. It was real life now: letters to write, costumes to mend, last night's tights to wash in the basin.... Lily, sitting on the edge of her bed, took her purse from where she had hidden it under the bolster—a habit she had acquired in marriage, because of Trampy's nightly ferretings—and emptied it on the sheets: one blue banknote; one, two, three gold coins. How much did that make in pounds, shillings and pence? Hardly seven pounds. It was all in ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... Theridamas; her time is past: The pillars, that have bolster'd up those terms, Are faln in clusters at ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe

... with the darkness and the weight of him, the result of the boy's best endeavour was, that Sir George half slipped, half rolled down upon the box, and from that to the floor. Assured then of his own helplessness, wee Gibbie dragged the miserable bolster from the bed, and got it under his father's head; then covered him with the plaid, and creeping under it, laid himself on his father's bosom, where soon ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald

... definitively that the great rebellion was over. On the other hand, there were not wanting some foreigners who would have liked to see the Manchus overthrown, and who severely blamed the British Government for helping to bolster up a dynasty already in the last stage of decay; for it seems to be an indubitable fact that but for British intervention, the rebellion would ultimately have succeeded ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles

... Union attempts to lower trade barriers, adopt a common currency, and move toward convergence of living standards. Internationally, the EU aims to bolster Europe's trade position and its political and economic power. Because of the great differences in per capita income among member states (from $8,000 to $61,000) and historic national animosities, the European Union faces ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... carelessness. All he has to do is to solve a problem and to place his answer before a magistrate, and then a judge and jury to decide whether he's right or wrong. No one but a fool would attempt to bolster up a wrong answer. In this case, too, you must remember that there are finger-prints. They cannot lie. If we get the right man—Grell or any one else—there will ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest

... toward the house, gained it without interruption. Felipe's lumber rigging and team of scrawny horses stood in the shade of a cottonwood, and Franke made the horse fast to the outhanging end of the reach. When he was secure both men seated themselves just back of the forward bolster, one behind the other, and Felipe sent his horses forward. Safely out of the danger zone, though Felipe entertained but little fear of the consequences of this act, believing that he could easily prove his ownership, he became more elated with ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton

... requires a ground plan. The ordinary size is six feet square. It is completely covered with mosquito curtains, and has no clothes, the broad expanse being broken by two pillows for the head and a long bolster (called a Dutch wife) which lies at right angles to the pillows. This latter is one of the numerous contrivances for securing coolness. The ordinary routine of hotel life is much the same as elsewhere ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold

... sugar; beat well four fresh eggs, add them with the grated rind of a lemon, stirring until the mixture is thick like dough. Put it on a pasteboard and when cold roll to the desired thickness, about one-quarter of an inch thick; lay any kind of jam over the paste, roll it into a bolster-like form and bake. Serve cold, whole, or in slices nearly an inch thick. Time twenty to twenty-five minutes ...
— Favorite Dishes • Carrie V. Shuman



Words linked to "Bolster" :   prop up, prop, fill, bolster up, shore, make full, reinforce, shore up, pad, fill up, long pillow, reenforce, pillow



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